LONDON, Ont. – Looking for redemption after last weekend's three set loss to McMaster, the Mustangs left everything they had out on the court to secure a four set win (25-12, 25-18, 22-25, 25-19) over Toronto on Friday night at Alumni Hall.
 
With the win, the Mustangs move to 7-6 on the season and sit in seventh place within the OUA. Toronto, currently tied for ninth in the OUA, holds a 3-11 record.
 
"We can't fault how our boys played in the first set," said Mustangs assistant coach Rob Atkinson. "We played great, as good as can be expected. We passed well, we hit very efficiently, and we ran the middle without any opposition."
 
"Toronto has a way of taking sets off teams. They haven't won a lot of matches this year, but everybody struggles with them. They can always find a way to stay in matches. They work hard, and that's exactly what happened in the third set."
 
First to earn a point in the match, the Mustangs were on a roll early in the opening set. Quickly establishing a lead, Western was ahead by six points at 8-2 when they forced the Varsity Blues into their first timeout of the night.
 
At 12-6, the Mustangs had the Blues doubled and showed no signs of slowing down.  Strong defence paired with un-returnable attacks from Justin Scapinello and Gavin Taylor brought the score to 19-9.
 
The Blues were able to briefly stall the Mustangs at 23 points, but couldn't stop Taylor from ending the set 25-12 on a kill.
 
Toronto returned to the court for the second set with renewed determination, staying tight to the Mustang score. At 6-6, the Blues refused to allow the Mustangs to run away with the score as they did in the first set.
 
With Taylor leading the Mustangs, as assisted by rookie setter Matt Hooker, Western slowly began to pull away from Toronto. At 19-17, Hooker began his serving run which would help bring the Mustangs to 22 points.
 
Closing out the second set was the blocking team of Scapinello and Chris Newcombe, who scored the final point to bring the score to 25-18.
 
The third set opened up with Toronto exchanging points with the Mustangs, until the Varsity Blues were able to establish a firm block that tripped up the Mustangs. Western trailed at 3-7, as Toronto closed up the earlier exploited holes in their defensive line and strengthened their play at the net to challenge the Mustangs.
 
Blocking from Trevor Grant helped the Blues maintain the lead, as they were ahead by three points at 13-16. Toronto struggled the Mustangs at an arm's length, as the score was soon tied at 21-21.
 
Closing out the set with a massive block, the Blues handed the Mustangs their first set loss of the match 21-25 to force a fourth set.
 
Despite opening up the fourth set by trading points, much like in the earlier sets, the Mustangs were wary of repeating their mistake of allowing Toronto to keep things close. Establishing a small lead at 9-6, the Mustangs focused on serving accuracy and finding holes in the blue and white blocks to combat the Blues.
 
The Mustangs maintained the lead through tight defence and had the Varsity Blues in a five-point deficit at 20-15. Mike Choja won the match for the Mustangs minutes later at 25-19 with a block that left the Blues reeling.
 
Justin Scapinello was the point leader of the match with 20.5 points across the four sets. Chris Newcombe follows behind with 15 points, while William Colucci was the Toronto high scorer with 12 points.
 
The Mustangs return to the court January 17 at Alumni Hall for a matchup against the OUA second place Ryerson Rams. The match is set to begin at 8, and can be watch live on OUA.tv.